A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg Page B

shut and the dog’s leash clangs down the steps. We hear the sheriff and Buck circle the house again and again. While they do, Mama sweeps up the broken glass and Uncle Bump whispers, “I’ma find a way to fix that screen, and soon as I do, I’ma get a TV antenna for the—”
    “Shhh!” Mama says.
    The sheriff and Buck are stopped just outside my window. “Hound’s not picking up any tracks leading from the shack,” the sheriff says.
    “Well, the tracks the hound picked up from the bayou to the shack must be old,” says Buck. “And if these tracks are old, he probably did get caught on the bottom of the bayou. As you know, coloreds can’t swim.”
    I watch the blue vein on Uncle Bump’s forehead bulge out his head. Soon the bark of the hound and the mumble of voices fade, but the racket of my heart in my ears is louder than before.
    A couple minutes pass till Mrs. Montgomery shouts through my bedroom window screen. “I been watching. They’s gone!”
    Mama gets off my bed and drags herself to the front door, where she tells Mrs. Montgomery the latest. And at long last, I’ve got Uncle Bump to myself.
    Hard as it is, I spit out the words to say what Buck held in his hand. Lord knows I could never tell Mama. She’d likely die on the spot.
    “Hmm,” Uncle Bump says after I tell him. He rubs his finger over his beard. “Your brother’s smart.”
    I can’t imagine what he’s talking about. Buck Fowler’s got Elias’s sneaker, probably found it on the bottom of the bayou. Like Buck said, Elias could be on the bottom of the bayou too.
    Uncle Bump sits on the edge of my bed. “You’re not a little girl no more,” he says. “But your mama? She don’t see it that way. You’ll always be her baby. And Elias too. Always, forever, no matter what.”
    “I know,” I say and lean my back against the wall.
    “I’m thinking you’re old enough to keep a secret,” Uncle Bump says. Then he tells me this: Just before the sheriff barged into our house, Elias stopped home to say goodbye. When he did, Mama rubbed onion on the soles of my brother’s sneakers and poured whiskey over his head to throw off the sheriff’s hound. “Then I gave your brother the gold pocket watch, so he can sell it for cash if he needs to,” Uncle Bump explains.
    The whole while he talks, my heart plunges real slow into my belly.
    When Uncle Bump’s through, he reads right into my mind. “You know your brother had to run bookity-book. That hound was after him. But before he left, he told me just one thing: to say a special goodbye to you.” He pushes aside my hair and kisses my forehead. “Now try to get some rest,” he says. “There’s still a couple hours ’fore mornin’.”
    But something about the way my bottom lip trembles seems to make Uncle Bump talk some more.
    “My opinion ’bout it? Your brother planted his sneaker there in the bayou. Must’ve wanted the sheriff to think he drowned.”
    By the time Uncle Bump leaves my room, he sounds real confident about his theory. Me? I get out of bed to check on the television. But soon as I see it, I feel sick all over.

    My sleep, it’s short and fitful.
    It’s the crack of dawn when I wake to a tangle of voices. I pull on my dress and step outside to the porch. The neighborhood men are too busy listening to the reverend read from the
Delta Daily
to notice me.
    The reverend holds the newspaper open in his hands. “‘The Negro assailant, Elias Pickett, seventeen, ran out of the Corner Store and, without provocation, attacked Kuckachoo High School’s star quarterback, Jimmy Worth, also seventeen. When the assailant attempted to flee into the bayou, receiver Buck Fowler, eighteen, who also plays defensive tackle, led the search for…’”
    All I can say is it’s a good thing Mama isn’t on the porch, because soon as the reverend finishes, Uncle Bump strings together a bunch of curse words.
    “Now surely you remember Emmett Till?” the reverend asks.
    “Uh-huh,” I